-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Rs 8 lakh crore for disabled welfare? The ministry of social justice and empowerment has asked government departments to earmark 3% of their budget on disabled-related interventions, raising the possibility of the huge sum over next five years that can bring the ignored social group to policy focus. The initiative flows from the 12th Plan document that has asked all government arms to earmark "reasonable amount"...

-The Times of India The Centre on Tuesday rubbished the charges made in the CAG report-based petitions alleging huge scam in coal block allocations and said it had put in place four sets of regulatory mechanism which had functioned well to monitor and take corrective measures. Responding to six questions the court had asked on a PIL filed by M L Sharma who had sought quashing of all 194 blocks of coal,...

-The Hindu In the television newsroom, the promoter’s fancies and political preferences have taken precedence over editorial judgement The Zee “extortion” case in which the news network is alleged to have demanded Rs.100 crore in return for rolling back its campaign against steel tycoon Navin Jindal’s “misdemeanours” in coal block allocations (for the family owned Jindal Steel & Power Limited or JSPL), is a deeply layered story that deserves a closer look...

-The Times of India The Planning Commission has bowed to in-house protests that government was using shortcuts to meet the targeted budget expenditure for dalits and tribals, amending the 12th plan document to insert a pledge to reform the annual spend on these communities. The commission has said it will beef up Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan that mandate the government to spend exclusively on SCs and STs in proportion to...

The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...